How about some love for this guy for once? Take a look, if you will, at the following.
2003 - AAA - 3.36 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 17 bb, 69 k
2004 - AAA - 2.02 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 6 bb, 52 k
2005 - AAA - 1.42 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 9 bb, 59 k
That's sick. But the baseball community refuses to accept him and his dorky glasses. Why? 2004 was his first season in the majors. He pitched 25.2 innings. He had a 7.71 ERA.
Well guys. I guess that carries more weight than the FIVE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN (thats 511) innings he's pitched in the minor leagues in his career. Maybe it matters more than the 200+ innings from the last three seasons alone. I don't think it does.
He had a bad cup of coffee in 2004, which incidentally was mostly in Coors Field Lite, Cincinnati. In six games with the Yankees, he had a 3.97 ERA. Granted, his peripheral stats for the Mets (walks, strikeouts, and batting average on balls in play) were not up to his AAA standards last season, and he did get lucky. But there could be a lot of reasons for that. His good luck outbalanced his surprisingly poor performance.
But even if both of those factors were to recede back to the norm, he would be an EXCELLENT reliever. He walked more guys than he should last year, but he induces a ton of ground balls and the worse preipherals could also have been attributed to a change of style ... pitching more to contact.
He's got the stuff to succeed at Shea, so I can't wait to see it. I'll take a 3.00 ERA for practically free.
2005: 1.49 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 13 bb, 17 k
Here is the article that prompted my response over at the Hardball Times
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